NetGuard - no-root firewall

Marcel Bokhorst, FairCode BV

In-app purchases

About this app

NetGuard is an internet security app, which offers simple and advanced ways to restrict apps' access to the internet.

Applications and addresses can individually be allowed or denied access to your Wi-Fi and/or mobile connection. Root permissions are not required.

Blocking access to the internet can help:

• reduce your data usage
• save your battery
• increase your privacy

Features:

• Simple to use
• No root required
• 100% open source
• No calling home
• No tracking or analytics
• No advertisements
• Actively developed and supported
• Android 5.1 and later supported
• IPv4/IPv6 TCP/UDP supported
• Tethering supported
• Optionally allow when screen on
• Optionally block when roaming
• Optionally block system applications
• Optionally notify when an application accesses the internet
• Optionally record network usage per application per address
• Material design theme with light and dark theme

PRO features:

• Log all outgoing traffic; search and filter access attempts; export PCAP files to analyze traffic
• Allow/block individual addresses per application
• New application notifications; configure NetGuard directly from the notification
• Display network speed graph in a status bar notification
• Select from five additional themes in both light and dark version

There is no other no-root firewall offering all these features.

If you like to test new features, you can participate in the test program: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/eu.faircode.netguard

All required permissions are described here: https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/blob/master/FAQ.md#user-content-faq42

NetGuard uses the Android VPNService to route traffic to itself, so it can be filtered on-device instead of on a server. Only one app can use this service at the same time, which is a limitation of Android.

The full source code is available here: https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard

Ratings and reviews

Great free firewall app - works well. For those not technical, it's not using an actual VPN connection. The way Android works is that an app like this needs to use the built-in Android VPN profile so it can locally block Internet access by apps. The catch is that if you use a separate VPN provider, you can only use one of these two at any one time. This is a limitation of Android if you are using a no-root firewall. This app is constantly being improved, so thank you Developer!!!

I originally thought it only worked with download apps but missed a setting that allows system apps even though I thought I looked enough. Thanks to the developer for pointing that out. I was able to block network access for everything that doesn't need it so Google apps can't spy on me and my music player can't force ads using my data.

I do like using this app, most big apps especially social media suck a lot of data and I've saved a lot of money on only using these on WiFi. One issue I have lately is that those same social media apps don't seem to work on WiFi unless I enable their data usage on Netguard. Which is weird as my partner uses NetGuard similarly and doesn't experience this issue. I may have a setting wrong but I did follow all recommended settings.

What's new

* Guarantee showing app names in notifications
* Optimizations
* Small improvements and bug fixes
* Updated translations